


gasoline symphonies

by spacegirlkj



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Assassins & Hitmen, M/M, prose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-03
Updated: 2017-12-03
Packaged: 2019-02-09 22:05:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12897798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacegirlkj/pseuds/spacegirlkj
Summary: Oikawa saw a grenade with a rusted pin. Hinata saw a knife held in a loose hand.(This is their life, is the most wonderful thing either of them know.)





	gasoline symphonies

**Author's Note:**

> i actually wrote 1k of this last october and one scene in march. thats what i call procrastination! the rest i finished tonight?????? can you tell i dont have a writing schedule

“Let’s try this one more time.”

The man’s voice, gruff, deep, as smooth as sandpaper and dirt roads, echoes off of the cement warehouse walls. It is clear he wants this to be over with soon, his burly arms crossed, foot tapping, face set. Anyone else would feel small next to the six foot living statue, but Hinata simply picks at the dried blood on his fingertips and whistles away.

“Where were you today, Hinata Shouyou?” the man asks. His voice is one part exasperated and two parts angry, a mixed drink of impending doom and annoyance Hinata would be wise not to ignore.

“Work,” Hinata replies, nonchalant. He doesn’t quite care for the formalities that come with addressing this man by name or looking him in the eye when the deep purple bruise on his arm proves more interesting. He pokes it, winces at the ache, then repeats the action again.

“Did you retrieve the package?” the man asks.

“What package?” Hinata shoots back. He is looking up at the man now, head cocked, eyes wide. _Coy, coy, coy,_ Hinata smiles at the man’s furious growl.

Before the man can raise his fist to smack Hinata in the nose, the creak of an opening door fills the empty room. Hinata feels a tingle run up his spine, feels his smile grow wide as the footsteps grow closer. The rush spreads to his fingertips, vibrates deep in his bones with anticipation. His grip on his bat grows tighter, the nails digging into the skin of his leg

“ _Tooru_ ,” Hinata sighs, grin splitting wide, spinning on a dime to face the man who had entered. “You’re here!”

“Yahoo~!” Oikawa says, smile sweet as honey, bitter as berries. He is wearing a perfume of formalin and formaldehyde, following him in a sickly smelling cloud familiar enough to bring comfort to Hinata on days like these. 

Oikawa raises the cooler he holds, plastic gloves squelching in the blood that soaks them, blue stained with red in a way that does not mix. His smug smile radiates warmth to Hinata’s chest, and just as he is about to scamper off towards Oikawa, something collides with the back of his head.

“Control your _bitch_ , and get him to stop tellin’ lies,” the man snaps, pushing Hinataforwards. Hinata is thrown onto the floor, hands hitting the cold cement with a loud _smack_. He freezes, hearing a snarl above him.

Chills creep through him as heels click against concrete, Oikawa footsteps drawing nearer. Hinata keeps his head down, smile slowly beginning to return as Oikawa speaks.

“Excuse me?” he asks the man, disgust concentrated in his tone. He doesn’t need to look up to see how Oikawa’s smile drops, how his eyes narrow as he looms.

“You heard me.”

Silence pierces the air, neither the burly man nor Oikawa saying a word. Hinata stays on his hands and knees, steadying his breathing, bat clutched loosely in one hand. Oikawa clicks his tongue, and Hinata’s grip tightens. Hinata can practically hear Oikawa’s smirk as he answers.

“You think I control him?”

Hinata launches backwards onto his feet, leaning back and over to swing his bat towards the man’s arm. He tries to grab it, but the nails cut through his hand before he can get a grip on it. Hinata giggles at the sight of him hissing, aims another blow towards the man’s ribs. The man moves at the last minute, and the blow isn’t as heavy as Hinata would’ve liked, but his shirt is torn and spotted with blood either way.

The man swears, reaching for something in his back pocket, giving Hinata enough time strike the man in the stomach. He groans, the wind knocked to of him, and Hinata lunges forward, deranged grin wide as he aims to knock his thigh with the bat. Suddenly, the man points his gun forwards at Hinata, right between his temples. Hinata sticks out his tongue, bends over backwards as the trigger is pulled. The bullet whizzes over his head, smacking into the metal walls instead of Hinata’s skull, earning him an approving hum from Oikawa watching on the sidelines.

Hinata’s heart swells with pride and Oikawa’s watchful eyes, and he runs forward, the man still firing bullets towards them. Hinata dodges the gunfire, sliding down onto the floor to knock the man’s legs from under him. He crashes down onto the ground, tries to pull himself up to no avail; Hinata has climbed onto his legs, bat held high above his head. He brings the weapon down, and with a deafening _crack_ , lands a strike on the man’s wrist. The man tries to pull Hinata off of him with his other arm, but Hinata has already managed to bring his foot up to step on it, pining him down and giving him leverage to strike his shoulder.

The man screams as the nails pierce into the flesh surrounding his collar, dangerously close to his neck. Hinata lets out a choked laugh at the sight of blood pooling in the crook of his clavicle, and he rips the bat from his flesh, swinging it down at the same spot once more.

As the man wails in pain again, Oikawa clicks his tongue, striding closer to crouch down next to the man’s head.

“One liver, a pair of kidneys, and a set of lungs. Is that correct?” Oikawa asks, voice low, smile twisted as Hinata continues to smash his bat into the man’s collar, now moving closer to his chest. 

The man nods, biting his lip to keep from crying out as Hinata digs the nails deeper into his muscle. The echoing squish of blood and nails penetrating flesh fills their ears, and Hinata can only laugh with haunting childish glee at the look of terror in the man’s face.

“You’re crazy,” he grits from behind his teeth.

“Maybe,” Oikawa says shrugging. His voice jumps up from it’s dangerous low tone up to a sweet, cheery octave, one that manages to send shivers down even Hinata’s spine. “But at least now you’ll remember how not to treat your assets. We work together, ‘kay? Shou-chan, let’s go.”

Hinata pouts only for a moment at the prospect at leaving, before whining and wrenching the bat from the man’s skin. He slips his hand into the man’s pocket and pulls out his wallet, then slides off of his chest, lifting his foot from the man’s arm and skipping over to Oikawa.

Oikawa throws an arm around Hinata’s shoulder, leaning over to press a kiss to his scalp. Hinata hums, not minding the way his bloody gloved hand squelches when he reaches to take it in his own. 

—

An eerie green glow fills the cluttered apartment from the bedroom when they return. The nightlight is the only thing illuminating the empty apartment, and neither bother with the rest of the lights. Hinata strips down to his socks in the entranceway, throwing his blood splattered sweater onto the floor. Oikawa wraps his arms around Hinata's bare waist as soon as he does so, presses his chest to Hinata’s back. The touch sends shivers down Hinata's spine, and the smaller sinks into Oikawa’s arms, mewling as Oikawa begins to place kisses along his throat, sucking delicately on the junction of his collar and neck. Hinata's breath is airy and hitched, one of Oikawa’s hands roaming lower while the other moves up his chest.

“ _Hnn_ , Too- _ru_ ,” Hinata breathes, eyes fluttering shut as Oikawa bites down on his neck.

“You did so well today, Shouyou,” Oikawa whispers, voice hot and heavy against his sweat slick skin. Hinata purrs at the praise, melting into Oikawa’s hands.

“Mm, Tooru, we shoulda never took the job,” Hinata says, leaning back into Oikawa’s chest, throwing his head back to rest on his shoulder. “Dirty work.”

Oikawa hums, the sound reverberating through Hinata. “That’s never bothered you before.” He says, hand moving to tweak Hinata’s nipple.

Hinata arches his back slightly at the contact. “At least clean me before you tear me apart.”

Oikawa chuckles, and the sound raises the hair on Hinata’s arms. “Shouyou, you know me so well.”

Hinata smiles, devilish, coy, turning so that he faces Oikawa. The apartment is cold, chills raking through Hinata’s bare skin, but he has never felt more warm, cheeks flushed, hands presses against Oikawa’s chest as he slowly works the buttons of his shirt loose. Oikawa looks down at him through half lidded eyes, smirk undivulged, and if Hinata was anyone else, he may have run far away.

Hinata doesn’t. Oikawa is beautiful in his eyes, charming, perfect, and in every possible way, absolutely _terrifying_.

Oikawa’s shirt falls to the floor, and Hinata allows himself to be lifted off of the floor, wrapping his arms around Oikawa’s neck. Hinata is a messy kisser, and Oikawa takes meticulous pride in his skill of whatever he does. When they kiss, it is slow, tongues brushing against teeth, lips red and swollen from biting. Oikawa stops to lick the blood off of Hinata’s split lip, opening his eyes halfway to brush his eyelashes over Hinata’s cheek.

Hinata shivers, and Oikawa tightens his grip around Hinata’s waist, moving to carry him into the bedroom. Oikawa sets him down on the bed, shoves his hand between his legs and begins biting at his collarbone, adding new bruises to the fading ones that already lie there. Hinata sighs heavy, reaches upwards to grip onto Oikawa’s back, drags his nails down and creates little red lines in their wake.

The glow of the nightlight casts over their skin, slick with blood and sweat among other things, illuminating the sheen in Oikawa’s eyes as Hinata spreads his legs just a bit wider, arches his back just a bit more.

Sirens fill their ears from the streets below, but it is nothing next to the sounds of their breath, heavy inhales and exhales drunk on each other’s lips. Trails of salvia connect them, and Hinata has half the mind to pull away and wipe his mouth of the spit that’s been collecting. His hands comes away slightly red, and he isn’t sure who to blame for the taste of copper in his mouth, but he doesn’t care, instead yanking Oikawa down for another kiss. 

That’s the life they live, copper and bruises and memories they both can’t recall. They fall back into one another when it’s too hard to meet the eyes of those they were paid to kill, when the truth of being an assassin weighs much too heavy on their necks. So tonight, they forget it all, lay down in the king sized bed bought on bloody money and exhale in a constant motion, holding tight until daylight rises.

All in a day’s work.

—

Most days, life is normal.

Hinata works his job as an online marketing person and Oikawa poises with his fancy suits and mask of an owner of a few stores downtown. They go for coffee together and buy nice things, see their friends, go to fancy events with otherwise unremarkable faces trained to blend into the crowds. They experience it all but watch like outsiders, move with the grace of a dancer with knives strapped to their shoes. They are observing, analyzing, even as they laugh and kiss each other’s cheeks.

Then, the burners ring, and their eyes drift away from the screen or the person in front of them. They apologize, they slip into the next room, and they answer the call, tandem ears ready to hear the next task. This is the real work, the brow sweat and elbow grease they call a career. Nails blunt, weapons hidden in plain sight when they may never need to use them. A safety net is all they are, a necessity for people like them.

“The client’s code name is Red. The target is Ryuuji, a wealth management banker who’shand has been caught in the cookie jar in more ways than one. The venue is the orchestra on Thursday night. We’ve secured your seats and bought your tickets in another name. Dress code is formal, operation is covert and tactics manager suggests a clean job in the washroom offset from his booth. There will be no cameras inside, but you must enter from the side door which connects to the rafters of the stage.”

The voice is automated, but the message is not. Hanamaki Takahiro coordinates for them while Matsukawa Issei handles tech. Oikawa rolls his eyes at the choice of words, and Hinata giggles. Both accidentally drop the phone into a puddle that night.

—

They don’t answer to anyone anymore, but it hasn’t always been this way. Being born into a family with debts worth more than your life means sometimes means you’re sold to a nice man in a brown suit with a kind smile who omits the fact that their son, who is no longer theirs, will be raised to point and shoot. Oikawa Tooru doesn’t remember his family, nor does he want to, but he remembers the man who handled him before he decided playing puppet for a ventriloquist hell bent on snuffing out a mafia family wasn’t for him. 

He was a murderer at age fourteen, but the man in the brown suit was _his_ first kill.

Hinata Shouyou is different. Vigilante is an affectionate term for what he once did, but the lines have long since become blurred. After all, you can only bend the will of your boss so many times before the money doesn’t cover your head. Hinata Shouyou is not justice, but the man who plucked him from his high school said he was, said that all his athleticism would go to waste if he didn't fight for a cause. 

You can’t purge the streets of what disgusts you if your endgame is zeros tacked behind a one. Hinata stopped flinching at loud noises at the same time he learned that a tree only grows stronger when you prune the edges. He never mattered to his boss in the first place, and all that remained of him in that life was a grin and a life lesson force fed from underestimation.

—

The orchestra plays Tchaikovsky while Hinata and Oikawa walk along the rafters. Hinata leads the way, tie long since tied around his wrist and knife held loosely in one hand. The arpeggio is muted through curtains yet clear as day. They’re walking above the strings now, and Oikawa’s already humming the tune.

_“Target is alone in the box now. Intermission in five, are you in place?”_ Matsukawa asks through their earpieces.

Hinata jumps the gap in the rafters, not a sound echoing from his feet. “We’re roughly five metres out.” Oikawa joins beside him, red leather gloves already pulled over his hands. He’s silent now. If they were musicians, Hinata would be a jazz pianist, and Oikawa would be classically trained. The art of the trade varies, but somehow their themes match.

While the music swells, Hinata picks the lock with ease, opening the back door and taking his place against the wall. When the target walks in, he’ll look ahead without looking towards what lurks in the shadow. Oikawa will wait outside the door until he hears the other shut, will slip in and make sure everything goes as planned. This is what they do day in and out, is how they line their pockets and stay afloat— masks pulled over hair and hands gloved, every weapon sterile and cold against the other party. These jobs are impersonal, cold. There’s no taunting, no jeers. Just the applause behind them as the intermission begins, and the long stretch of silence as they wait for the target to walk in.

He does. He’s much bigger than Hinata, but that’s no issue— Hinata is used to being a head shorter than every person he encounters. The knife is a decoy, is a weapon to wield to distract the man from the hands that appear behind him, twisting his neck.

In seconds, it’s over. They leave the way they came and lock the door behind them. They change suits in a costume room and discard the masks into the hearth. They are nameless, faceless, echoes of human beings. Still, Oikawa kisses Hinata’s neck as they sneak away into an unmarked car parked under an aged willow tree, hums softly the tune of the symphony they heard while they sway. The lines in their ears go dead— job well done. There’s no trace that they even were there, not an imprint in any living memory save the song stuck in Oikawa’s head. It doesn’t matter— never has, never will. All they need is each other, is the comfort of a held hand and the security the other brings.

—

The next job Hinata does alone. It’s the kind that happens in the shadows, in an alley where it could be written off as unlucky. They don’t often work apart, but when they do, the other always comes back shaking. This is no different— Hinata doesn’t wash the blood off before throwing himself onto Oikawa, doesn’t check if he’s wearing white before their arms are tangled together.

“I did well, but it wasn’t clean,” he mumbles. “Got me in the arm, on the cheek too. Punched my stomach too.”

It isn’t why he’s crying, though. Oikawa understands, cradles him and kisses the top of his forehead. He shepherds him into the bathroom and lifts him onto the sink, doesn’t pull away onto Hinata’s shoulders have stopped shaking. His voice is hoarse from repeating _I love you_ , but that doesn’t matter right now. What matters is that Hinata looks up at him and sighs, pulls off his shirt with a wince and lets Oikawa stitch up his arm and kiss every bruise better.

Oikawa understands because sometimes, there’s jobs too similar to what they’ve left behind but still remember, where old faces meet new scars and new ends. There’s an overlap in this business. If Oikawa feels like he failed his purpose from time to time, then Hinata must have bones crushed under the ideas of what he could’ve been.

“You’re worrying about me,” Hinata whispers as Oikawa puts the antiseptic down, having finished cleaning the little cut on his cheek. “I’m all right now that you’re here.”

“It’s my job to worry,” Oikawa murmurs. He presses their foreheads together, runs his hands through the orange locks of Hinata’s hair. “Hold onto this.”

“I won’t let it go,” Hinata replies. Unspoken: _I won’t let you go._ Echoed: _I love you._

“I love you,” Oikawa responds, kisses him softly and holds him steady as he melts in his arms.

—

They met five years before this story takes place in the circumstance where they end up with the same target and too much to sort through to let the other leave. There was no fighting, but the neon lights from a nearby club sign made each other look explosive, energy stored and ready to be released. Oikawa saw a grenade with a rusted pin. Hinata saw a knife held in a loose hand.

They helped each other after that. It was unwritten, whatever alliance they formed, and it was so _new_ and unheard of to actually trust someone that they still tripped up in what they’ve been told. Most days, they never found normal. They hung out in apartments that weren’t theirs and raided the fridges of whoever they just offed. They lied to their bosses and told secrets about their lives to one another. They wrnt around and around and around in the game of assets and liabilities, in sharing too much in not sharing at all, in not needing to speak because the other knew the wound all to well. Mirror images in different glass, a friend in the underground life they would both call hell if not for each other.

Then, it changed, because the jobs got harder and they got better, got deadlier, and the secret got harder to keep. The people Oikawa worked for were calm, calculated. They bargained with the lives of those who worked for them and those they wanted eliminated. Hinata watched those lines cross and shivered, wondering where exactly Oikawa fell.

“I’m not used to this kind of stuff,” Oikawa admitted one night as they left a bar smelling like gasoline and smoke. Behind them, sirens rang. “Your technique is… unconventional.”

“It’s not mine yet,” Hinata had said. “At this point, my work is far from what they said it’d be. S’not like I had a choice but… we’re kinda the same.”

The flames made everything about him seem bright, like the mess behind them was just a spark to a flame. Eyelashes brushed across cheeks flushed red, and Oikawa’s heart fluttered when Hinata held his hands. It was warm, hot, creeping up his spine from the inside. Oikawa wondered if this was where he fell in love, or if he was a goner when they caught eyes under the neon lights.

When they kissed that first time, it was falling, gentle despite the teeth, delicate despite the hands tugging in Oikawa’s hair. It was quick, ten, twenty, thirty seconds before they were ripped apart by the instinct to run to cover, to go back to the base to collect Hinata’s reward. The entire time spent waiting for him to return with a cheque Oikawa spendt touching his lips, replaying the moment over and over in his head.

He stayed with Hinata that night and called him Shouyou for the first time, kissed him until his lips were chapped and revered the warmth of his skin. Hinata’s freckles were ten to the thousand, the universe spelled in brown flecks across shoulders and down his back. Oikawa would spend almost as much time tracing them as he did with Hinata’s tongue in his mouth.

Hinata bit his lip and sighed so softly, slept in his shirt that night and laid on his chest. Holding him felt like holding the world if the world had a heartbeat and little breathes that fanned out across his collarbone. He slept the best he ever had in months, dreamed only of campfires and the colour red.

—

The last job either of them did while working for someone else was in the dead of night in an office building. A stock broker worked until morning and Oikawa’s side needed him dead. He was said to be dangerous, so Hinata came along— high risk, high reward. A gamblers game. No one died, but they left nursing wounds and trembling, Oikawa clutching onto Hinata with his face in the crock of his neck, trying not to cry out as they made it back to the safe house.

It had a balcony. They both remember it, remember the cold March rain that hit their faces as they climbed to the peak to piece back together their joint conscience.

Oikawa looked out towards the city skyline, traced his hands over the flickering lights of office buildings he knew he’d never work at and restaurants too luxurious for the kind of people they were. Beside him, Hinata bandaged a cut to his forearm, taped the gauze tight over the wound, kissed it better as if it were the biggest blow they had received that night, as if underneath Hinata’s shield of button downs and protective vests there wasn’t a bruise in the shape of a would-be stab to the heart. Oikawa’s own chest twisted, and he wondered if irony and karma prey together. 

Weakness. Hinata showed weakness, and so would he. 

“A secret,” Oikawa stated, more to the hidden stars than the boy beside him. “Love terrifies me. You’re the only person I can say I’m in love with, the only one I want by my side.”

“How could anyone not be afraid of love?” Hinata shot back at Oikawa, leaning against the glass of the guard. He had blood under his nails that he needed to wash, and Oikawa wanted to do it for him. He didn't point it out, only wondered if it was just his own hypocrisy playing tricks with his eyes. Maybe roses were blooming underneath pale nail beds instead. Maybe Oikawa was a poet instead of a hitman. 

“You aren’t,” Oikawa replied after two heartbeats and half a breath. “You throw yourself into everything, pour your soul into every laugh, open up for me, of all people, take a knife to the chest–”

“I was wearing a _vest_ –”

“–And you do it without even hesitating,” Oikawa finished. “I envy you, Shouyou.”

It’s when he heard Hinata snort that Oikawa remembered he didn’t sign up for predictable. Hinata’s fingers moved to tangle into his, squeezing tightly as he looks out onto the skyline himself.

“You’re just blinded by self-pity and fear,” Hinata told him,as if it were a truth branded into his mind. “Just because I trust you doesn’t mean you don’t scare me shitless.”

Oikawa furrowed his brow. Hinata made sense in the way that annoyed him most at the time, forced him to fall in love with his own idiosyncrasies at the same time he fell further for ginger hair and brown eyes. 

“Fear is just an emotion that comes from a gun against your temple and a lover with connections to every major crime group in this city, y’know?” Hinata mused, pressing fingertips to Oikawa’s jaw, forcing him to look his way. “It won’t stop me from playing my next hand or being with you.”

Oikawa truly faced him then, took in how purple neon lights illuminated his face, made the orange in his hair seem brighter, the whites of his eyes seem lighter. Hinata looked at him with unwavering sureness, with hands trailing over the little exposed skin and eyes focuses on his lips. Oikawa reached forwards, brushed a thumb over freckles that don’t suit a killer, over lips red and softer than either of their hands. He loved him, he loves him. 

“Let’s go home,” Oikawa whispered, and it wasn’t and still isn’t fair that Hinata can smile coy and press his lips to the corner of his mouth and pull air from his lungs. And Hinata smiled that same smile, the one that shines brighter than the futures neither of them will have, and pressed his forehead to Oikawa’s.

“You know I’ll follow.”

They stop obeying orders after that.

—

Now, Hinata reads a book while lying against Oikawa’s chest, arms resting on his stomach, lips by his ear. In that story, a girl plays the violin while her mother leaves chapters in the desert searching for her father. In _their_ story, Oikawa closes his eyes and breathes in the scent of Hinata’s shampoo. They use the same one at this point, but the aroma never stops being comfort for him.

In this story, Hinata puts the book down and turns around fully so that they’re chest to chest and listens to his heartbeat, listens to the song Oikawa hums as if it were the greatest piece ever composed. This is their life, is the most wonderful thing either of them know.

In unison, two burners go off on the table beside them, filling the silent room with the shrill song of a ring. They do not startle, they do not tense. They only smile, and stretch out their shoulders, and pick it up, handing still entwined, chest to chest.

**Author's Note:**

> talk to me on tumblr: spacegaykj.tumblr.com
> 
> also if ur wondering reincarnation au is just on hold and idol au is being written, all is good, all is happening!


End file.
